Are You Awake?

Are You Awake?

The morning sun filtered through my bedroom window and roused me from my sleep. I stretched, rose from my bed, and walked down the hall to the kitchen where my family was gathered around the breakfast table. “What a strange dream,” I said to no one in particular. “Dreams are so odd, aren’t they? Even though at times they seem real, they feel so very different from reality. Being awake is a completely different experience. You definitely know when you are fully awake and not dreaming.”

I said all this to my family only to actually wake up this morning and realize that my experience was all a dream. It was so bizarre… I was dreaming inside a dream, but when I woke from the first dream, I truly felt and believed that I was awake. It felt like reality.

I decided to do a little research on this phenomenon. The experience of waking inside a dream, or dreaming within a dream, is called a False Awakening. Normally this experience manifests itself as someone waking (while still in a dream) and going about their daily morning routine as if they were awake. It is not usually the case though that someone consciously reasons that they are awake as opposed to just merely believing they are awake based on the surroundings and cues in the dream.

My experience got me thinking about the reality in which we live – our state of being awake. Is it possible that everything we tangibly experience on a daily basis is not the true reality? Is our existence upon the earth merely some sort of dream? Are we merely reasoning with ourselves as I did in my dream that yes, we are awake; we definitely know when we are fully awake and not dreaming? I would argue, yes. I believe that we are living in a state of False Awakening.

The Bible makes it very clear that there is a reality we can’t see. We are in a sense, spiritually asleep. Whether you believe it or not, the world that we experience on a daily basis is merely the tip of the iceberg of everything that exists. Science proves this to be true. Scientists say that what we as humans are able to perceive only a small fraction of the sounds, scents, and sights in the world around us. Just consider dogs; they have an ability to not only hear and smell things that we can’t, they can read the energy of humans and other animals. They are able to perceive things as reality that we don’t even know exist. Just because we don’t believe something to be true, doesn’t mean that it isn’t. Reality does not conform to our wishes.

In the same way that a sound may be imperceptible to our human ears, there is a spiritual realm, a land of other worldly beings that intersects with our own. We cannot hear it, see it, or perceive it… most of the time.

The Bible reveals several instances where God “opened the eyes” of His servants so that they could see behind the veil. You can read about Balaam, his talking donkey, and the angel of the Lord in Numbers 22:21-35. And in 2 Kings 6:8-17, Elisha prayed for God to open the eyes of his servant so that he could see the angelic army that fought on their side.

Just as with a False Awakening (dreaming inside a dream), we are able to be “awakened” or “open our eyes” to this spiritual reality. And it is crucial that we do! There is a war being fought, a spiritual battle that wages on day and night, unseen to the human eye. The battle is for your soul. The greatest scheme of the enemy is making us believe that we are awake when we are really asleep. Satan has convinced us that there is no war, there is no spiritual realm, and there is no need to worry. The adversary has lulled us to sleep and placed in front of us an alternate reality. How can anyone fight in a war if they do not believe it exists?

How do we wake up? We cannot wake ourselves, it is only Jesus who can wake us from this dream. The Bible says, “Their minds were made dull, for to this day the same veil remains… It has not been removed, because only in Christ is it taken away… But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. {2 Corinthians 3:14-18}

Not only does God open our eyes to the reality of the war, but He opens our eyes to see that we have been created to be like Him. The more we shake the sleep from our eyes and wake up, the more we see and realize that we are like God, which transforms us to live in this reality. We are members of His army!

Wake up to the true reality. You are a soldier in a time of war, and there is a mission at hand—overcome the enemy and set the captives free! Jesus gave our mission to one of His first soldiers in Acts 26:16-18. It is the mission that has been passed down through generations; it is our mission today.

“Now get up and stand on your feet. I have appeared to you to appoint you as a servant and as a witness of what you have seen and will see of me. I will rescue you from your own people and from the Gentiles. I am sending you to them to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.”

In parting, let me remind you dear friends, “Fix your eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” {2 Corinthians 4:18}